Thursday, May 7, 2015

#Obamacare is increasing opioid prescriptions at ER's

Experts say too many patients are being
prescribed opioid painkillers by emergency room doctors, and a program
created by Obamacare could be enabling the problem.
A new study released this week found 17 percent of nearly 20,000
patients were discharged from emergency rooms with an opioid
prescription. Experts and lawmakers say a push under Obamacare for
hospitals to get good patient satisfaction scores is one cause of the
problem.
America is in the midst of an opioid "epidemic," according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Painkillers killed more than
16,000 people in 2013. A huge part of the problem is the prescribing of
painkillers, which quadrupled from 1999 to 2013.[...]Doctors may feel pressured by hospital
administrators to prescribe opioids because it may lead to a better
score on a patient satisfaction survey, experts said.Read more here.